


Crushed Petals Underfoot

by MadameFolie



Category: Sound Horizon
Genre: Deadly Premonition, Fate & Destiny, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-24 04:42:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8357725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameFolie/pseuds/MadameFolie
Summary: In the long stillness of the hours before dawn, Artemisia cleans the altar for the day’s new offerings and dreams of her own death.





	

In the long stillness of the hours before dawn, Artemisia cleans the altar for the day’s new offerings and dreams of her own death.  
  
The unyielding blade thrust through her gut burns like the temple’s pyres – she sees the dim silhouette of its tooth, its red coat stark against her clothes. The last time, the pain struck her across the back, long and horrible and slow. She saw the phantom of her shawl split and slip to the ground, piled upon a spray of blood in the dust. The vision before that, she’d felt her arms spread and pulled taut, the steel at her throat. They come more and more, as the days pass; ill omens walk at their sides.

 

“Sit with me a little while, dear,” Sophia had bid her. Artemisia’s eyes could no longer see the form of the lyre in her lap, but she could hear the faint ring of the strings as the high priestess draws her finger along them. “It would be a pleasure to have your company while I play.”

 

“Of course, my lady.” And she had sat beside her. It’s far lovelier than anything Artemisia could have imagined would ever again be her life, the way the gentle ocean breeze dances about them. The way the sun warms their skin. She can feel the kindness in Sophia’s bearing even now, so many years after her world grew too clouded over to see.

 

“You seem troubled, Artemisia.” Sophia’s fingers had picked at the notes for a long poem. Then hesitated. Something lighter, then sadder. Then something grave. She must wish to write the story of some great hero, Artemisia had thought. “What’s wrong? This isn’t like you.”

 

Artemisia imagined confessing. She imagined telling Sophia of the foul, slick feeling of her own blood on her hands. Her skin turned cold as hot tears strike her face. A deep, ugly, boiling pain within. The chorus of iron upon bronze and smoke in the air. The snap of a gut string.

 

Sophia started. “Ah!” She shifted the lyre to better see the damage. “Misia…” Artemisia had kept her head turned, steady as before towards the sea, but she could not have helped the tremor in her hands.

 

The sibyl must not rebuke the cruelties of the gods.

 

The dawn steeps the sky an uneasy red. The goddess will not return her brother to her. Artemisia clears the withered flowers from the altar on the morning she is fated to die so that she may pray anew for the strength to see it through. 


End file.
